Venice Red Carpet: Somewhere, Norwegian Wood, Miral, Reign of Assassins

The Venice Film Festival progresses. Day 4 of 11 today. So let's pretend we're there for a moment and check in. You can't have a good glitzy A list international film festival without immortals like Catherine Deneuve showing up (pictured left). Why is she shielding her eyes for she is brighter than the sun. All in all things seem to be going well. Take the premiere of Black Swan for example. Opening films don't often make that much of a splash, divisive or otherwise.

Another big question mark film of the 2010 film season is Sofia Coppola's Somewhere (trailer discussion). It's her follow up to the poorly received but delicious Marie Antoinette (2006). She's back to the present day for this film about an actor (Stephen Dorff) visited by his daughter (Elle Fanning) at the Chateau Marmont.

The reviews have been mixed but more than most filmmakers I trust not any reviews about her work. Her girlish dreamy haze tends to cloud judgment. But here are a few...

• In Contention "thoroughly beguiling"
• Evening Standard "no big dramatic moments, just a series of sequences"
• Obsessed With Film "ever bit as poignant as Lost in Translation, if not as fresh."
• Thompson on Hollywood "should play well for the young smart-house set."
  

Somewhere premiere: Sofia Coppola, Stephen Dorff, Laura Chiatta, Elle Fanning

Italian actress Laura Chiatta (The Family Friend) is also in Somewhere's cast which is why I included her here. Mostly because her lipstick is transporting me back to the early Aughts. It's all I can see. Is she wearing anything else?

I don't expect that the film will win Oscar traction (low key efforts rarely do and a late December release for a contemplative film won't help. Coppola whispers and Oscar hears only Oscar-bait shouting in the holiday months) but I'm still so excited to see it. Coppola is three for three in my book. Will this make four for four?

On to other films...

International Divas: Yeoh, Abbas, Kikuchi, Campbell

Michelle Yeoh, in town for Reign of Assassins, is a goddess. You knew that already. Her latest star vehicle was bought earlier this summer by the Weinstein Co which probably means we'll never see it (you know how they do). But since we can't look at the film, let's look at those shoes. The shoes... Gah! They're probably worth more than most people make in a year and she can probably kill those multiple assassins tailing her with them. Incidentally, Yeoh is also an assassin in the movie. What is with the cinema's complete fixation on assassins as protagonists? It's easy to understand them as villains but so many of them are actually the heroes of their movies. I shutter to think what this means about the human condition.

• Hollywood Reporter "lush visual treat... with crossover potential."
• Film Biz Asia "a rich gallery of characters
  
• Screen Daily "absorbing and entertaining."
• MovieWeb (the trailer... note: you have to watch an ad first)
  

Hiam Abbas was in Venice for the premiere of Julian Schnabel's Miral but curiously Freida Pinto, "Miral" herself, was not. Maybe she saw some unflattering reviews coming.

• Obsessed with Film "cravenly seeking approval"
• Telegraph "It’s terribly earnest, and characters often speak dialogue that resembles a history lecture"
• Thompson on Hollywood "Pinto, while gorgeous is not an expressive actress."
  

I should note here that none of the negatives lobbed Miral's way in reviews tend to be awards season negatives with Oscar, given that earnest lectures and films which needily cry for approval are fixtures of every awards season. And nobody seemed to have a problem with Freida Pinto's inexpressiveness as an actress in Slumdog Millionaire -- don't try to tell me that's a new development.We just barely dodged that supporting actress nomination I think. And it would have been one of those semi-regular headscratchers for being "the girlfriend."

Norwegian Wood, another prestige adaptation of a novel, also premiered. Rinko Kikuchi, the most famous member of its ensemble cast (credit that Babel Oscar nomination), hit the red carpet. I don't understand this look at all. But it definitely reminds me of a expensive monochromatic version of that awful ruffled confusing short skirted thing Peach turned out on Project Runway two nights back. Oh, Peach... wwyt?

• Variety "lovely but listless"
• Indie Movies Online "the story is not quite as peerlessly handled by Tran as the aesthetic presentation"

Finally, I included Naomi Campbell in this roundup because I cannot for the life of me, imagine her actually sitting down to watch movies, only strutting through flashbulbs towards them. I know she's been in a few movies but has she actually ever seen one?

Action auteur John Woo (pictured left) received the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement and was also there as co-director of Reign of Assassins (with Chao-Bin Su, who also wrote the film).

Quentin Tarantino is the head of the Venice jury so we'll see what his jury does with their cups and statues next weekend. Stay tuned.

Yes, No, Maybe So: Somewhere

The Virgin Suicides, Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinette. Second generation auteur Sofia Coppola hasn't failed us yet. Her perceptive ethereal films about delicate girls with faraway looks in their eyes are stunning to behold and deeply felt, too. Here's the trailer to her fourth film Somewhere (2010).

This is one of those cases where I need to water down my expectations lest I wet myself. I love her movies. So I'll divvy it up as to what makes me most excited (yes), most worried (no), and somewhere in between (maybe so) for the appropriate "I Shan't Be Controlled By Marketing" balance.

yes
Coppola understands how to convey both unexpected intimacies (Bob & Charlotte in Lost in Translation) and painful estrangements (usually familial but sometimes spousal as seen in Suicides and Marie-Antoinette) which should serve her tremendously well in the telling of this story of actor/father (Stephen Dorff) and tween daughter (Elle Fanning) who suddenly comes to live with him at the Chateau Marmont. Coppola's films obviously use her own life as inspiration and she knows from being the daughter of a famous showbiz person, as we all know. The shot of the underwater tea party is unexpected, charming and gives me great hope that this will be variable in mood and so specific that it will read universal.

no

On the other hand, who can relate to leisurely wealth and scads of downtime? There's so many shots of actor and daughter lounging, sleeping or barely mobile in their luxury environment. Now, I don't have the same problem as some viewers do with Coppola's hermetically sealed worlds and their wealthy almost slothful protagonists. After all, nobody complains when male auteurs make movies about the same male character types each time yet Sofia catches heat for her continual emphasis on upscale lost girls. Double standard! So, I hope she makes dozens more features about whatever the hell she wants. But, since this looks to be the closest to her own experience of all of the films, given the subject matter and movie industry backdrop, it could bring out excessive navel gazing. Sometimes it's just a navel no matter how hard you look. Showbiz played into Lost in Translation, too, but it did so in a more offscreen way.

maybe so

We know that Sofia Coppola is a natural in the director's chair and that cinematographer Harris Savides, one of the best in the biz, will help her provide beautiful vivid imagery. But whether or not Somewhere touches viewers in any substantial way will depend greatly on the father/daughter chemistry of Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning. We won't know if that's poor, adequate or sensational until we're actually watching the movie. There are some things you can never learn from a trailer.

Are you a "yes, no or maybe so?"

Care to make any Oscar guesses? The movie is currently set for release on December 22nd, which blows. You'll have to try not to be jealous of the hazy downtime of Dorff and Fanning while you're at maximum stress levels during the holiday rush and the prestige movie glut. Hopefully they'll move this to the usual Sofia spot in the early fall.

We Can't Wait #9: SOMEWHERE

"We Can't Wait: Summer and Beyond" continues with what is sure to be one of the dreamiest films of the year, in mood if not in content.

Daddy (Dorff) and Daughter (Fanning)

Somewhere
Directed by: Sofia Coppola
Starring: Stephen Dorff, Elle Fanning and Michelle Monaghan
Synopsis: A decadent actor gets an unexpected visit from his young daughter and begins to reexamine his life.
Brought to you by Focus Features
Release Date: TBA but we're assuming September/October? That's the Coppola time frame.

Nathaniel: We've had several discussions, you and I, about the inherent dreaminess of Sofia Coppola pictures. I'm curious to see how her haziness matches the "hard living" of the actor character in Somewhere. I don't mean hazy pejoratively as in a vague or cloudy minded film but in the contemplative drift her films tend to provoke in the viewer. I've loved all of her features so I'm hoping this is no exception.

I'm intrigued that she's shifting her gaze to a man, despite my love for her 'dreamy girls' milieu whether they're embodied by Kirsten Dunst (twice over sensationally) or Scarlett Johansson (once most successfully). But I'm not so pleased that she's switching cinematographers. Obviously Harris Savides is a genius, but I so enjoyed her collaboration with Lance Acord. He recently lensed her ex-husband's Where the Wild Things Are superbly...

Sofia's previous cinematographer Lance Acord (Lost in Translation,
Marie Antoinette) and her new one Harris Savides (Birth, Milk, Zodiac)

I'm starting to drift contemplatively so I'll toss it to you with this: even though I'm excited, I can't say I'm really a "fan" of either lead actor. Can you imagine the wrath of Dakota if Elle gets an Oscar nomination first?

JA: If there's somewhere where drifting contemplatively is welcomed, it's in conversation about Miss Sofia's movies. But yeah, the Fanning house is not somewhere to be on nomination morning if such a thing were to come to pass. (But if you do find yourself there, please have an Abigail Breslin mask on hand. Hilarity will ensue and by hilarity I mean large sharp objects and by ensue I mean flung at your face.)

I'd been imagining the focus on the Dorff-Fanning relationship to be something like the one on the Murray-Johannson relationship in Lost in Translation, in that they're both pretty much the focus, but I guess that's just my imaginings having already run off with themselves sensing all the opportunities for long shots of Elle staring off into space in dimly lit rooms of the Chateau Marmont. Prime staring real estate! So I hadn't really thought of Coppola's gaze here being any more male-focused than it was there. I guess after three films with such a strong voice already in place I have trouble imagining Sofia able to resist the urge to drift off with Elle just a little bit.

<--- Elle Fanning attending the premiere of big sis's last hit, The Twilight Saga: New Moon

Either way, whomever the camera's pointed at, Savides brings me no fear! He's proven himself many times over to be a terrific custodian of the elongated space-out. I mean, Elephant, man. Gerry! Doesn't get much spacier than that. And we just saw the wonders he can work with the sun-dappled backyards and side streets of LA in Greenberg.

Can't say I'm a fan of Dorff really either but I do think he's an inspired choice, and I have a feeling he's got something in there to deliver. Anybody that was in an episode of Father Dowling's Mysteries is cool with me.

Nathaniel: And maybe anyone who has ever played a vampire is due for a career resurgence in this new decade?

Dorff on set in Milan

How do I drift so far off topic? Readers? do you go into dreamy trances watching Sofia Coppola's work? Are you eager to go there again?
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